1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of a computer network system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for managing Web Services within a network system.
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2. Background Art
In general, a web is an unstructured network system that uses HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) as its transaction protocol. The World Wide Web comprises all HTTP nodes on the public Internet. An internal web comprises all HTTP nodes on a private network, such as an enterprise's Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN). If the organization is a corporation, the internal web is also a corporate web.
Note that internal webs, also known as intranets, are only logically “internal” to an enterprise. Physically, they can span the globe as long as access is limited to a defined community of interest.
Web Services generally provide access to applications and data over the web through a platform independent, standards-based transport mechanism called Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). These services can describe themselves through an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) document formatted using the Web Services Description Language (WSDL).
Referring now to FIG. 1, the intranet 10 within an enterprise 1 are typically separated from the Internet 30 through a firewall 20. Basically, a firewall 20 is a barrier to keep destructive services on the public Internet 30 away from the intranet 10.
Referring now to FIG. 2, the machines on a service-orientated network can be categorized as two types: servers (130, 140, 150 and/or 160) and clients (110). Those machines that provide Web Services to other machines are servers (like Net servers 150, JAVA servers 130 or Mainframe servers 160); the machines that are used to connect to those services are clients 110. It is possible and common for a machine to be both a server and a client, but for purposes here the machines are referred to as one or the other.
Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 2, the advent of service-oriented network has provided an enterprise 1 the unprecedented ability to integrate with internal machines and externally provided services. However, this integration created problems for the enterprise 1 as to how to manage both these internal machines within the intranet 10 and the externally provided services (e.g., services on another intranet or the Internet). Current Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has yet to develop an extensible and pluggable system to manage these machines and/or services, such as managing the security risk and/or the performance and availability of the services provided by the servers. Thus, there is a need for an enterprise 1 to develop a system to manage its SOA in an extensible and pluggable way.